Maxim DL/CCD Ver.4 - First Impressions

Posted by Randy Nulman   05/18/2004 07:00AM

One big improvement was in the guider routine. Maxim now allows many changes “on the fly” so one can tweak guide parameters while guiding. This includes aggressiveness, x/y calibration results (useful if one axis starts acting up), and some other guide settings. The routine is also improved to better recognize guide stars.

I was also happy to see the “sequence” routine now allows one to set the number of exposures for each line. For example, one can choose to take 4 red, 4 green, 6 blue and 12 Luminance exposures…click go...and let the software do it’s thing. Dithering is also allowed now either thru camera control or telescope control. (Being able to dither exposures is a BIG plus and improves s/n significantly.)

On the processing side, Version 4 now offers interactive gradient removal, a very good bloom removal routine, and some other new filters. There is also a L-R deconvolution routine available, but I must say that as of now, I seem to get much better results with CCDSharp . I also find CCDSharp much easier to use. Hopefully, Maxim will improve on the deconvolution routine in the near future.

There are a few minor bugs…many already fixed in V4.01 which was just released, but nothing major

I highly recommend this software for acquisition, basic pre-processing, and color combine.

Randy Nulman

Click here for more about MaxIm DL Version 4.0 . -Ed.